Moses Itauma has called for an immediate rematch with rival Filip Hrgovic, but promoter Frank Warren has weighed in on his star client's future. Warren would like to see Itauma have at least 'one or two' more fights before competing for a world title again.
Defeat and aftermath
The young British heavyweight was up on all the scorecards and cruising in his fight with Hrgovic before gassing out and being stopped in the ninth round. Itauma's team have since taken some criticism, questioning the Brit's conditioning and how they failed to prepare him for a 12-round clash.
He was taken out of the ring on a stretcher and transported to hospital before being discharged to recover with his family. After leaving the hospital, Itauma was quick to get on the phone to his promoter, calling for an immediate rematch with the hard-hitting Croatian.
Warren's advice
In an interview with talkSPORT, Warren revealed: "He's saying to me, 'Can we get the rematch on?' which is a natural reaction. But I told him, 'You have got to switch off from boxing, go and chill out and spend some time with your family and come back, recharge your batteries and then we get to work again.'"
"The landscape is what it is; you are a big part of it. You have shown you belong at that level. Provided he learns the lessons from the fight, I think he can go on and do great things."
Next steps
Regarding Itauma's next steps, while the heavyweight wants an immediate sequel with Hrgovic, Warren has advised his star client to go back to the drawing board and work his way back up. "I would like to see him in at least one, maybe two fights and see where we go before we go [back to that level]. We've got to sit down with the whole team and discuss this. His manager is my son Francis, and all of us will get together to look at it. I've been around the game long enough; I knew on the night what was going to happen," he continued.
"I was sat next to his brother, and after the seventh he looked like he was puffing a bit and then in the eighth round he came out with a big round. I said, 'He's going to punch himself out'. I could see what was going to happen... He had his foot stuck down on overdrive, and that was it.
"I believe 98 per cent of the heavyweight fighters would have got stopped on Saturday by the punches he was throwing. And I said to him only recently, 'There will come a time when you come against someone who can take a shot, and you'll have to get to plan B'. That's what happened on the night, and it's happened to so many fighters over the years, especially big-punching fighters."
"But with him, he put so much into it that he didn't have the strength to box. If he could have boxed the last few rounds, maybe he would have got through that because he was miles ahead on points. The only way Filip could have won was to knock him over, which is what he did at the end of the day."
